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Austin, TX – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul (R-TX) participated in a panel with Senate Foreign Relation Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) and a press conference at the Halifax International Security Forum over the weekend. While at the forum, Rep. McCaul participated in many bilateral engagements with top government representatives from Canada, Taiwan, Poland, Sweden, Estonia, and Australia, among others.  

Watch the panel here

On competition with China

“We just have to learn to be more competitive, in technology…that’s how we win. [China] is investing a trillion dollars in their technology, digital economy, AI, Quantum, 5G, semiconductors all of that and we’ve got to compete.”

On the Afghanistan withdrawal 

“[The withdrawal from] Afghanistan was a disaster. To put the Taliban in charge of HKIA and our security, a suicide bomber gets in and kills 13 servicemen and women. We left thousands of American citizens behind. [The] State Department didn’t have a plan. We have hundreds of thousands of [Afghan partners] at the mercy of the Taliban [who] are getting tortured and killed by them. And we promised we would save them. I’m going to hold hearings on this…because fundamentally the veterans deserve an answer, they need to know what happened and why it went so badly.”

Watch the press conference here

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